F*ck You Kindle for Making Me Like You

I did not want you, Kindle. No, I said, I like books, I said. I like the feel of them in my hand, I like the weight of them in my bag. I love how books smell, how it feels to run my finger over the words as if they were hieroglyphics carved into an ancient cave, slightly raised against the ridges of my fingerprints, telling me someone else’s story, reassuring me that someone else was here before me. No Kindle, I had no room for you in my inn. You would not call to me from my shelf, beckoning me to read you again, tempting me to take another journey where I notice things I missed on my first time through your pages.

You are thin and cold and light. I like fat and warm, heavy. You would die in my purse when I didn’t put the lid to my omnipresent water bottle on tight enough, whereas my friend, Book, just had to be dried off, his wet page corners deteriorating between my fingers when I couldn’t wait for him to dry fully before reading more. And when Book dried, and I picked him up months or years later, his little jagged-edged corners would remind me of where I was when that page was wet and tearing in my hands. No Kindle, you were not for me, something high-tech and out of place in the land of beautiful novels, with their hard covers and crackling spines.

So imagine my surprise, Kindle, when I was handed you, as unwanted of a gift as a backwards compliment, and I, begrudgingly, started to enjoy you. None of the beauty and grace of my lovely Books, but still providing me with the words, the stories. Interesting, I thought. Then I learned I could place my finger over a word, one whose meaning escaped me, and you, Kindle, like a prophet, would instantly bestow upon me the definition of said word. Not bad, Kindle, I thought. Not too shabby.

So Kindle, I admit. I judged you before meeting you. I will give you a chance, though you will always be number two in my world of reading. Besides, last night, when Cat stepped on you and you freaked out? When I could not get back to the page I was on no matter how hard I pleaded? Yeah, Book would never do that. However, you have gotten inside my head, Kindle, because I find myself touching words in books now, not to feel the raised ink, but expecting the definition to pop up out of vapor from the pages.

Tags: Books, Kindle